Jaboticaba fails to thrive, loses leaves

I have a small jaboticaba that loses most of its leaves, then puts out a few more, loses leaves again, and this continues to happen. The plant is in an appropriate location, with good soil, mulch and moisture, in Zone 10A/9B in Martin County, FL. There is no evidence of insect infestation, sooty mold, etc. - it's just hanging on.

I would suggest posting your question in the Beginner Gardening Forum instead of here http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/b_gardentalk/all/ This forum is for questions about the Plant Files database, so for questions about how to care for plants, etc you'll probably get more responses in the other forum.

When you post over there, it would help if you could post some pictures of the plant. Also, if it really doesn't have any insects and the location, soil, moisture, etc really were all good, then the plant would be happy and healthy so the fact that it's struggling tells me there's something wrong in at least one of those things. So it would help to get some more details (how much sun/shade, what type of soil, how often are you watering, fertilizing, etc) so that someone can maybe figure out what's not quite right. In the absence of any other information I'd suspect a watering issue, but without more info/pictures all anyone can really do is guess.

Oh - I thought that is where I was Beginner Gardener Forum - that's what it says at the top of the grid...

But thanks, I will look and see if I have accidentally migrated out of there. As to water - our automatic sprinkler system waters twice a week for 20 minutes each time, and it gets almost full sun. I previously had it planted in an area where it received less water, and fewer hours of sun, with the same result. Oh well maybe I'll just dig it up and plant another subtropical exotic in its place.

You're in the right forum now--your post was originally somewhere else and it looks like the admins must have moved it for you.

You might try sticking your finger in the soil before the next time your sprinklers would come on and see how wet it feels--if the ground is still really wet then it's possible that it's getting too much water. Or if it feels bone dry then maybe it's not getting enough water--especially if you have really sandy soil that could be a problem too. The symptoms of too much and too little water can often be similar so the finger test is the best way to figure out which one might be the problem.

Plant Files says it likes full sun, so that part should be OK (although if you just recently moved it from a shadier spot to full sun, the leaves can sunburn and eventually fall off if they're damaged enough).

Beyond that I've never grown these so I don't know what they're picky about, but hopefully someone else will have some ideas.

This message was edited Nov 23, 2010 10:32 AM